the basic message #E11
James 4:14
What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Imagine this scenario: You’re
walking across a dark parking lot when suddenly you feel a pistol
against your head. A menacing voice says, “You’re
about to die.” Your mind races with hundreds of
thoughts, and then the gunman asks, “What will you give
me if I let you live?” Your brain answers “anything”,
but your mouth says, “What do you want?” The thug’s
answer is bizarre: “I don’t want all of your money,
just a small part of it. I don’t want your body but I
want your mind, in order for you to think about me. I don’t
want you to be my slave, I just want you to spend some of your
precious time doing some things for me.”
Most of
you will already see where I’m going with this: we would
sacrifice nearly anything to be able to keep our life.
Psalm 39:4
“Show me, O Lord, My life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.”
Life is short. Life is fleeting.
Life is without real value without Christ. Let’s
return to the scenario: The gunman has stated what he
demands in return for your life. Your answer is easy- of
course you’ll do what he asks. Now let’s put
this into proper focus. If we claim Christianity, we also
have the full expectation of spending eternity with God. Our
salvation is a free gift from God, but God does ask us to
follow the example of his son, Jesus Christ. What is
required of us to follow Christ? Let’s see: Give a
small part of our money, spend time in prayer with God, and spend
time doing things for other people on God’s behalf. Sounds
familiar doesn’t it? We would do these things
faithfully for the gunman, but God asks for us to do the same
things to have much more than life- he offers an eternity
millions of times better than this miserable earth.
John 4:13
Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
We, as Christians, know fully well that
Jesus makes demands on each and every one of us. We also
know that the return on the sacrifices we make for him will be
repaid beyond our wildest expectations. Since we know these
things, why do we value life more than eternity? Most of us
would give up anything to the thug holding a gun to our head, yet
we won’t give the same things to Jesus. Let’s
go over this once more: We would give anything to a
miserable punk who doesn’t deserve anything from us other
than Christian love, yet when our Savior asks politely for the
same things, our actions say, “No”. The punk
criminal thinks he holds our life in his hands, but does he even
hold that? I don’t think so. God still holds our
life in his big hands, the punk only holds the instrument of
physical death. What’s the most the thug can take?
A vapor we call life. Jesus can give what? Eternity
with him in paradise. It’s time to wise-up, friends.